Germany veering tofarright

GERMANY HAS LONG BEEN A CHAMPION OF THEEU. — BERCUSON

The world’s attention this past week has been riveted on the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, where Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, an American resident and columnist for The Washington Post, walked into the consulate and never walked out again. But far more consequential to the stability of the international trading and finance systems was the election this past Sunday in the German state of Bavaria, where the ruling Christian Social Union and its coalition partner, the Social Democratic Party, together lost 21 per cent of the popular vote while the hard-right Alternative for Germany party gained over 10 per cent of the vote. AFD now holds seats in 15 of Germany’s 16 states after a major breakthrough in German national elections in 2017. It is Germany’s third largest party by seat count.

Germany has been the rock of the European Union for at least half a century. Under a succession of leaders from the moderate right and the moderate left, it has become the most prosperous country in Europe and an industrial powerhouse on the world stage. From razor blades to expensive motor cars and washing machines, German products are sold worldwide, giving Germany a prominent place in the Group of Seven and an unofficial status as the sixth permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.

Since 2005 Germany has been governed by coalitions led by Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union. She has had the longest tenure of any leader of the Group of Seven and her canny political instincts have kept her far from political danger, until recently. In last year’s election, her party lost sufficient seats to make it very difficult for her to form a coalition government. She was saved at the last moment by a decision by the Social Democratic Party (SPD) to join a coalition of her party and the Christian Social Union.

Now that the Christian Social Union has suffered its worse loss in Bavaria in decades, odds are increasing that Merkel’s coalition could collapse, with no apparent successor in sight. Both the Social Democrats and the Christian Social Union have been shaken by the results and both are pointing to Merkel’s leadership as a prime cause for their troubles.

It is difficult to know whether Merkel is simply losing popularity because of her longevity in office, Germany’s changing demographic structure, her invitation to a million Syrian refugees to enter Germany (Canada brought in 40,000), or the appeal of a new populism on the right personified by the AFD. Italy, Poland, Hungary, Sweden, Greece and the Netherlands have also moved to the right in recent elections. President Emmanuel Macron of France’s strongest opponent was Marine Le Pen and her right wing National Rally party.

It is clear that in Europe at least — and in Britain with the result of the Brexit referendum — the spectre of Muslim immigration is shaking much of Europe’s politics to its roots. But Germany is different. The combination of Germany and France in the Schuman Plan — the European Coal and Steel Community of 1950 — proposed by then-french foreign minister Robert Schuman was the original building block for today’s European Union. And Germany, in particular, has long nailed its future to the EU partly to rehabilitate itself for its Nazi past, partly to bring Europeans together so as to ensure that Germany would never again see its European neighbours as its enemies, and partly to build Europe into an economic powerhouse buying German products.

Germany has long been a champion of the EU, a strong supporter of the single currency, and a bedrock in its insistence on prudent monetary policies through the European Central Bank and in the policies followed by what most Germans see as the spendthrift EU nations to the south, such as Greece.

Merkel has provided Germany with strong and steady leadership, but it is hard to identify anyone in the wings who could dominate German politics as she has. And now there is a rising threat posed by the AFD, which claims it is not neo-nazi but which echoes words and declarations against foreigners (without defining who is a foreigner in Germany, other than the Muslims) that sound suspiciously like those of Hitler and his Nazi Party.

Is AFD simply filling a slot left by the moderate parties in raging against Muslim immigration (and, of course, Germany’s small but growing Jewish population)? Or is it appealing to old bloodand-soil memes with deep roots in German politics, particularly in the former Communist east? And does it matter? The breakup of Merkel’s coalition, the continued rise of the AFD, or the departure of Merkel herself from the scene could bode ill for a nation that is today a bedrock of democracy and an economic and political powerhouse of the Group of Seven.